COMMUNITY RELATIONS/COMMUNITY POLICING

The South Bend Police Department believes in the benefits of community involved policing. Therefore, we have numerous programs for our citizens to be involved in and benefit from. Whether you are interested in volunteering, attending a citizen's academy, getting involved in beat meetings, or learning about safety and more, there is a program for you.

	Citizens Police Academy allows local residents a course on learning more about local law enforcement
	CVOs are volunters who are utilized in traffic protection, traffic related services and local events
	Crime Stoppers involving citizens in solving felony crimes, involving rewards for fugitive apprehensions anonymously. Call 288-STOP
	The Explorer program provides an opportunity for young men and women bewteen the agers of 14 to 20 to experience first-hand how a police department functions.
	The SBPD Police Athletic League has officers teaching local youth positive interaction through athletics.
	VIPS volunteers are actively involved in assistance for traffic directions at natural and man-made disasters, large public gatherings, amongst other services.

More about Community Policing

What is community Policing?

       Philosophy

Community policing is a philosophy, management style, and organizational strategy that promotes co-active problem solving. Community Policing promotes police department and community partnerships to address the causes of crime and the fear of crime. Community Policing works to enhance public safety and improve the quality of life within the community.

Partnership in Responsibilities

The entire community is responsible for public safety, not just the Police Department. Community Policing recognizes a shared responsibility and connection between the South Bend Police Department and the community making South Bend a safer, more livable city.

Problem Solving

Officers are encouraged to become familiar with the community, listen to the citizen's concerns, and assist them with problem solving. Problem-Solving strategies are used by the community and the police department to develop customized responses to problems.

Components of Community Policing

• Redefines the roles and relationship between the police department and the community.

• Requires shared ownership, decision making, and accountability as well as sustained commitment from both the police and the community.

• Establishes new public expectations of and measurement standards for police department effectiveness.

• New standards include quality of service, citizen satisfaction, cultural sensitivity, and responsiveness to community defined issues.

• Increases understanding and trust between the police department and community members. It promotes more contacts, greater communications, and information exchange.

• Empowers and strengthens community based efforts.

• Requires knowledge of available community resources and how to access and mobilize them, as well as, an ability to develop new resources within the community.

• Requires long-term strategic planning to address underlying conditions that cause community problems.

• Requires knowledge of available community resources and how to access and mobilize them, as well as, an ability to develop new resources within the community.

• Requires internal philosophical support to promote risk taking, creativity and innovation, and a commitment to free officer's time and provide necessary resources.

• Decentralizes police department services, operations and management, relaxes the chain of command, and encourages innovative and creative problem solving. Empowers employees by giving them the authority and support to make decisions.

Police Department's Role

Community policing shifts the role of the beat officer and his first level supervisor from the incident driven law enforcer, to problem solver and facilitator. Enforcement tactics are not eliminated, rather the tools available to officers are greatly expanded.

A focus of Community Policing is problem solving. The police department still responds to emergencies. However, many of the calls to the police department are not law enforcement related. This type of call is better handled by other agencies. As the number of these non-emergency calls decrease:

• Officers are able to spend more time working with citizens to solve crime and disorder problems.
• With better offer-citizen communication, officers can more effectively use and share crime information with the community.
• Officers who know both a community's problems and its residents can link people with other public and private agencies that can help solve community concerns.
• No single agency can solve complex social problems alone. A combined community and police department effort restore the safety of our neighborhoods and business districts.

Why Is It A Time For Change?